


There are no monsters

by celticdrum



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Bullying, Other, Racism, ethnic cleansing, hinted fatality, political corruption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 06:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celticdrum/pseuds/celticdrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were taught many things in here, but not all of them important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There are no monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Shingeki no Kyojin/JE crossover; things in the fic happens 50 years before the actual story, so I might have taken some liberties with the timeline and the military structure. It's supposed to tie with the actual story however, so if you have never read the manga or watched the anime this might be hard to read. Orz Inspired by Mikasa's background, The Hunger Games series and KAT-TUN's new song, Phoenix. Originally posted on [je-holiday @ lj](http://je-holiday.livejournal.com/174449.html).

They were taught many things in here, but not all of them important. Fighting, balancing, slashing, punching—Ueda knew all of that 10 years before the rest even grew a tooth. But rules were rules, missions were missions and Ueda's mission didn't include asking questions. Too bad for humanity.  
  
The rest though, they should ask. They should question. They should want to be taught more.  
  
They should be taught fear and how to deal with the shakiness that came with it. How to fight the monsters within instead of the monsters outside. How to grip the blade when your palms get wet, how to walk with legs that wouldn't move. How to eat with blood on your face, how to stop dreaming at night, how to go on living, stuff like that.  
  
Aim at the neck and cut it clean? Child's play.  
  
-  
  
Shige was alright, Shige had always been alright. Shige would charge on, Shige would forget. Shige, fight! Shige, you can do it! Shige, be the hero!  
  
They laughed and jeered and spat. What is with you and your people, they should just die off. What a waste of space. Your clan is why we can't have nice things. Your people tried, too bad your people failed.  
  
Do you know why they let you live? Do you, Shige? Do you?  
  
Shige knew. Shige knew everything. But he didn't answer. He smiled and let them say whatever. His mother said a lot of things to him but he only remembered the most important thing: Don't fight with them.  
  
Shige knew why they were left alive. Because they always needed people in the Survey Corps. Because there were always people vacating their positions in the Survey Corps.  
  
But everybody else loved this other answer: they were left alive so that they could die.  
  
-  
  
Everybody thought Taguchi would fail.  
  
Correction. Everybody wanted Taguchi to fail.  
  
It didn't matter to Taguchi. Failure wasn't an option but failing also wasn't what he did best. There were things that he needed to achieve. Failing the class? Not going to happen. Not for a person like him.  
  
There were a lot of people like him, his people, in this batch of trainees. The government was really serious in wiping them all. Taguchi knew it very well. What the government wanted, nobody knew, but Taguchi could always tell how they do things. Rebellion? Round them all, wipe the fighters, imprison the weaker ones, take the children. The sooner they dwindle the easier to make people forget about them. Enforced amnesia, they called it. The government wanted to control history.  
  
He took the punch to his guts and swore revenge. One day, someday. It would happen.  
  
Smile, Taguchi, smile. They hate it with the passion of a thousand burning titan corpses.  
  
-  
  
Nakamaru didn't know if he would ever see his mother again, but one thing was clear in his mind: the sound of his mother's wails.  
  
When they pushed his father to the ground and dragged him to a mission outside the walls, when they came back without his father, when they told her that her precious Yuichi would be taken away in a week, when Nakamaru looked back as he was being escorted.  
  
His mother used to think that the world was cruel, but beautiful, so very beautiful. Look above the wall, Yuichi, she used to say. The blue sky, did you see that? The tall mountains, did you see that? The birds soaring in the sky, did you see that? We have this place here inside the walls but we used to own the earth, the entire thing, not just the piece of land we step on.  
  
Our people wanted to be the bird, but they shot us down, she said, tears and blood on her face. That's why they sent your father outside. They wanted to tell your father that we would never be the birds. They made your father and our people suffer. They dragged your father outside, they led him to his grave, they made him disappear.  
  
They want us to be the thin air. The nothing.  
  
Nakamaru used to think that his father must have suffered greatly but today he learnt that everything was different.  
  
There is hope for us, mother, he thought as he looked around. Some of us are different.  
  
Today was his graduation day and he wrote in a letter to his mother:  
  
Mother, I made it. Mother, please be proud. Of me and of dad. He must have fought. His life was for something.  
  
Mother, I'll come back.  
  
-  
  
Sho lived by a rule: if you can't beat them, find another way to beat them.  
  
Survey corps was many things but united was never it. The Children of the Rebels were still very, very hated, and Sho knew this was what crippled them. Hatred crippled them. Hatred prevented them from thinking. Them not thinking prevented them from knowing things. Them not knowing things made them easy titan snacks.  
  
Sho knew things. Sho thought about things. Sho didn't hate. Sho couldn't hate dumb people.  
  
That was why they couldn't kill Sho. He wondered if the new Survey Corps soldiers, especially those who were also the Children, would survive.  
  
Ueda. Looking formidable. Someone to look out to.  
  
Nakamaru. He probably had never seen a titan.  
  
Shige.  
  
Shige. _Shige_. How should he start. What should he even think of him.  
  
-  
  
Kamenashi was no genius, no matter what people said. He had always dreaded the journey back from outside the walls because of the whispers from the crowd.  
  
Look at him, one old man whispered, the youngest soldier ever to be made a captain, and he leads the Secret Operations Squad!  
  
Look at him, a woman squealed to a baby she was holding. My son, look at him closely, he's our hero, he'll kill all the titans!  
  
Look at him, a little boy shouted, he looks so strong!  
  
Sometimes they didn't look at him and utter words of admiration, sometimes they whispered.  
  
They said he killed his way to the top. Some said he blackmailed the top guns. I heard he's obsessed with the titans, they said he killed them every night in his dreams.  
  
I heard he's a monster, just like the titans he had killed.  
  
He kicked his horse and together they sprinted ahead. He didn't have time for all the malice.  
  
-  
  
Sometimes Tegoshi thought about things he could achieve: he could slip into the royal court, he could hide within the safe confines of Wall Sina, he could marry a noblelady and his descendants would be the last of the Children of the Rebels and the king would look at them, the living irony and a breathing remnant of the government's despotic past.  
  
One of the Children who didn't look like one.  
  
He could _so_ torture them.  
  
-  
  
Among the trainees, only Paolo was friendly with Shige. But Paolo's now inside Wall Sina, one of the Military Police.  
  
He used to say that it was really cruel for the other trainees to sideline those Children of the Rebels, because life is short, shorter for us soldiers even, why spend our lives bullying people?  
  
But Shige just thought he was being kind. He wasn't sure, but he had heard random buzzes, things about Paolo being adopted because Paolo was brought in by the Survey Corps from outside the wall as a baby, and they suspected him to be related to the titans. Shige had never seen him acting like a titan or talking about eating humans, so he could be sure that Paolo was most likely not a titan.  
  
At least if he was a titan he wasn't likely to eat Shige.  
  
Paolo was strong though, far stronger than Shige. He was quick and sharp and agile. He could kill Shige ten times over and he could bite Shige's shoulder off if he wanted to but he had never. Paolo, like many high-performing trainees, excelled to qualified for a lifetime immunity.  
  
Shige didn't understand, but Paolo said that it had always been that way. The actual strongest fighters kept away while the bandits and troublemakers are thrown outside the walls. The only compensation was the public perception, the Survey Corps would always be the heroes, the ones who fight, when in reality they were exiled.  
  
I'm not exiled, Shige insisted. I'm here to fight. I'll fight. I won't die. I won't.  
  
-  
  
Remember your mission, the letter said.  
  
Don't worry, he wrote back. Just fooling around.  
  
-  
  
The Commander didn't like his tea cold, so Tegoshi heated the pot of tea before bringing it to his chamber. The Commander was kind, but he was also strict and picky. Everyone in the Survey Corps knew better than to make him angry. The one time they did, it wasn't pretty.  
  
Commander Pixis was reading a letter, from his nephew it seemed. The Commander doted on his nephew a lot. Dot is growing up so fast, Dot is already good with hand-to-hand combat and is now picking up swordfighting. Dot will be good for the Survey Corps one day, he might even succeed me, Commander once joked.  
  
It was the best and the worst thing about Commander Pixis: he didn't like those higher ups but he didn't know how to play their game. Tegoshi knew it better than anyone. Having spent years with the Commander, he could see how the Military had been challenging the Survey Corps, as though goading the Commander into a dangerous mission and yet didn't overtly drive him away. They knew that the Commander was indispensable.  
  
Sometimes Tegoshi would like to see the titans breach the wall, just once. He wanted to see their faces when they knew how helpless they could be. All that training and reaching the top of the class and wasting years away while the survey corps fell, one after another, sometimes simultaneously.  
  
-  
  
Koyama had never seen anyone like Shige. He entered the Survey Corps a year earlier, hardly could call himself _experienced_ , but even Tegoshi had never seen anyone like Shige. Tegoshi entered the Survey Corps about three years ago.  
  
Most of us are broken, beaten people, Koyama said. We've seen terrible things, some of our hearts are icy cold, some of our hearts are like bubbling volcanoes. If you weren't like that you'll be like that after a few missions, Shige. You're one of us, that's what it is like to be one of us.  
  
Shige said no. Shige said he's reserving everything until he faces an actual titan.  
  
-  
  
About a hundred kilometres from the wall, and there had been no titan sighting in this area in a week. It was starting to worry Kamenashi. Survey corps had never gotten more than a hundred fifty kilometres from the wall, about a little further than the distance between Wall Sina and Wall Rose—they could already build a fourth wall, some of his squad members joked.  
  
But there had been no expedition where a titan wasn't sighted. They were always fighting them, slashing and killing and yet not getting closer to the truth of their mortal enemy. Who are they, what are they, why are they? All the questions Sho's team had been trying to answer, all the questions that popped out the more they asked, within the truth but not discovering. The constant frustration accompanying the endless battles, but Kamenashi knew they would one day kill them all.  
  
But it must be before the citizens forget that they owned the lands, they had the property rights to it, they were here before the titans, they should have the rights to roam free within their own home, not driven into a corner hiding like mice. The more he fought the titans, the angrier he became.  
  
He heard distant stomps, erratic footsteps, and he signalled towards his team.  
  
Be ready, guys. They found us.  
  
-  
  
There were anxious whispers around, and they all spoke about Nishikido's team who was dispatched out for scouting purposes, who had found dead titans instead of living ones. Ueda discovered that Commander Pixis's style was rather clever; forming several tiny squads to scout out their environment at night. Usually formed of seasoned soldiers, one of the basic unofficial skills was understanding non-verbal signs and codes. Makes sense, Ueda thought. It was, after all, imperative that they keep communication as discreet as possible.  
  
Out of over a hundred graduates in their training unit, less than ten joined the Survey Corps. Taguchi said that it was the lowest enrolment ever for the Survey Corps.  
  
Most living citizens have never seen real titans, what's the evidence that they existed anyway?  
  
Ueda spat on the ground.  
  
So they want evidences, he said to Taguchi.  
  
Evidences.  
  
The scars on his palm, will they ever fade?  
  
 _Evidences._  
  
How long would it be before someone realises?  
  
-  
  
They were summoning Sho to the capital.  
  
Sho crumpled the letter in his hand. Wonder if someone realised.  
  
-  
  
The people wanted the Children of the Rebels gone, that was why the Children were the only fresh Survey Corps recruits. They wanted them gone and they didn't want to go with them. Let them go and fight. Fight and fight the titans until they all get eaten. Even if there are no titans let them go, leave our sight, we don't want them here, we are not them, we are good people, we listen to the government.  
  
Taguchi had always thought that people were pretty pathetic. Then again, he also had never really felt the impact of the failed rebellion until recently. It had been a decade but people were unforgiving. They saw a way to eliminate people who would otherwise be eating their precious food, they saw a moment to side with the strong and so they did, they stuck with power and lost their reason, and if Taguchi were to tell his children, actual children, how had his people die, he would say that it wasn't the titans who killed them but the icy cold apathy.  
  
And so the graduates thought, let the Children go beyond the walls. Let them fight. We shall enjoy life, let them waste their lives for whatever that awaits them outside the walls.  
  
What would be more satisfying to kill, Taguchi wondered, the humans or the titans?  
  
-  
  
Even as a trainee Nakamaru was slow. He was lighter than a lot of them yet taller, so his centre of gravity had always been his biggest weakness. To defeat him one only needed to destablise him, hardly reliable.  
  
That was why he trained, and he trained a lot. He ate more food than was given, the tree roots and the spoiled potatoes the others didn't want. At first they caused him rather severe diarrheoa but he persisted on, because he was made of stronger stuff. His mother was made of strong stuff, that was why she could raise him while feeding on her own grief. His father was made of strong stuff, that was why he could fight for their own people against the capital and fight outside the walls.  
  
He would always remember the night when Ueda single-handedly shook a large tree with only a fist. Teach me, Nakamaru asked. I want to be strong, I want to fight, I want to prove them wrong.  
  
It took Nakamaru three nights to convince Ueda, and three months to be able to defeat an opponent in a spar. It was all thanks to Ueda and his power.  
  
Now he was sitting outside, inhaling soundly. Nakamaru passed him a potato and sat beside him.  
  
It's starting, he thought, and he knew Ueda was thinking the same.  
  
-  
  
Shige sensed that something was wrong with everyone. There were anxious people everywhere, Tegoshi was uncharacteristically gloomy. Commander Pixis was pacing around his chamber. Sho had left with a horse back into the walls.  
  
A few hours after Sho left, someone came to send Commander Pixis another letter and the next words from the Commander were simple, but heavy.  
  
“We head out.”  
  
Shige knew it was time to fight. With who, that was the question.  
  
-  
  
Taguchi found Nakamaru and Ueda outside and sat with them.  
  
Once I saw a boy fighting, he began while the both of them ate potatoes. It appeared like the boy was protecting one of ours, one of the Children, because they were throwing stones at him.  
  
Taguchi remembered that little boy's face, and the colour of his hair, the prominent eyebrows, that hardened face, and the firm way his words sounded. Because I can't stand it, he had yelled when Taguchi asked. Strange boy he was, one of them yet one of us, and so Taguchi asked for his name.  
  
Ueda was puzzled. Why did you remember this. Why now. Why _now_.  
  
Make them remember our name at least, he said to Ueda and Nakamaru. Carve a place in their hearts for our voices, make them pay.  
  
The boy's name, Taguchi said, was Grisha Jaeger.  
  
-  
  
Fight, Shige. Don't lose to them. Don't be the one they left to die.  
  
-  
  
Mother, it's time.  
  
-  
  
You can't just aim at our necks, we are called the Children but your little children's game won't kill us.  
  
-  
  
Sho was brought in front of the General.  
  
You and your little Secret group, the words drawled. We found you.  
  
-  
  
Forget the mission, the letter said. Run.  
  
Don't worry, he wrote back. I'll kill them all.  
  
-  
  
What would be more satisfying to kill, the humans or the titans?  
  
-  
  
Guys, they found us.  
  
-  
  
Shige, know who you have to fight. Sometimes, it's not the titans.  
  
-  
  
They called us monsters, Ueda thought, but they don't know monsters. There are no monsters, only filth.  
  
Another scar in his palm.  
  
-  
  
Far in Shinganshina district, a boy sat beside the lake. He was reading a book about the magical world outside the walls—technically he couldn't really read, but the images were fascinating. This is the world we are in, this is the land outside the walls, this is what they robbed from us. The titans, why are they like this?  
  
A stone into the water and a tiny splash to his face. Grisha, Grisha, they laughed, what a fucking girly name you have, shame to your family, shame to you! You freak with a girl's name, you are a monster, just like them!  
  
He wiped the water off his forehead and remembered what his father had told him. Don't mind them, Grisha. It's human nature to feel superior. When they can't, they oppress. Don't give in, Grisha. Don't let them get you.  
  
When you're ready, Grisha, join me in the basement.  
  
Grisha smiled. The stones, the jeers, they got nothing on him.  
  
I'll get our world back, I'll soar in the skies, I'll tell everyone.  
  
There are no monsters


End file.
